The hatches swung
closed between Discovery and the International Space Station at 4:52
this afternoon Central time so that the shuttle’s cabin pressure could
be lowered in preparation for a space walk Thursday by Dan Barry and
Pat Forrester.

In preparation
for that Extravehicular Activity (EVA), the crew spent part of the day
checking out the suits that will be worn for the planned six and a half
hour excursion to install an ammonia servicing unit on the outside of
the station. It contains spare ammonia that could be used in the station’s
cooling system if needed. They also will attach an experiment to the
station to expose samples of engineering materials to the space environment.
The samples will be returned to Earth for analysis in about a year.

A second space
walk currently is planned for Saturday to hook up heater cables for
the first of several girder-like truss structures, that will be delivered
to the station next year.

Meanwhile, members
of the station’s Expedition Two crew continued the handover of station
operations to their Expedition Three replacements. Throughout the handover,
the stowage of equipment and supplies inside the Leonardo Multi-Purpose
Logistics Module continued. Some 5,200 pounds of supplies was confirmed
on board the station and will be unpacked and stowed by the Expedition
Three crew after Discovery departs early next week.

Early in the day,
Russian flight controllers completed the reloading of upgraded software
into the computers of the Zvezda module in preparation for next month’s
arrival of a new module to the station, the Russian Docking Compartment,
which will serve as a new docking port for visiting Russian vehicles.

The Russian flight
control team continues to track preparations of a Soyuz spacecraft set
to deliver the next Progress supply vehicle to the station. Launch from
the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan remains targeted for Tuesday with
docking Aug. 23.

Early Thursday
morning, the Expedition Three crew of Frank Culbertson, Vladimir Dezhurov
and Mikhail Tyurin plan to televise a commemorative message marking
the one-thousandth day in space for the International Space Station.
It was Nov. 20, 1998 when the first element – Zarya – was launched atop
a Proton rocket initiating the construction of the orbiting outpost.

Discovery and
the station are orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes at an average altitude
of 246 statute miles with no systems issues being worked by the flight
control team. The next status report will be issued around 6 a.m. Thursday,
or earlier, if events warrant.

###

NASA Johnson Space
Center Mission Status Reports and other information are available automatically
by sending an Internet electronic mail message to majordomo@listserver.jsc.nasa.gov.
In the body of the message (not the subject line) users should type
"subscribe hsfnews" (no quotes). This will add the e-mail
address that sent the subscribe message to the news release distribution
list. The system will reply with a confirmation via e-mail of each subscription.
Once you have subscribed you will receive future news releases via e-mail.